I am a writer, blogger, musician and composer based in Brooklyn, the founder and curator of the popular Tumblr, I Love Charts and the author of I Love Charts: The Book.
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In Defense Of My Generation

Today, The Huffington Post published an article by Amanda M. Fairbanks titled The Lost Generation. As the only person on the Forbes roster who is part of this generation, I suppose it’s my duty to weigh in. Apologies if there is anybody under 25 writing for Forbes of whom I am not aware (Shoot me an email; let’s listen to rap music, play Pokémon, and troll Chat Roulette, or whatever else we kids do these days…).

I’ve read a lot about my generation. I’ve read psychological profiles, sociological musings, journalistic pity pieces, and op-ed piles of condescension. Unfortunately, I haven’t read much written about my generation by somebody from my generation that was particularly incisive. Here follows a column that will in no way alter the previous sentence.

The death of Osama Bin Laden marked the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the unnamed decade. Common names are The Two-Thousands, The Ohs, The Naughties, Noughties, Aughties, Oughties, or The Aughts (my preference). Whatever name one prefers, the decade ended without an official culturally embraced title. Pluralistic or noncommittal, it is with names, rather than a name, that the decade will be defined.

Those of us who came of age in the last ten years are saddled with a similar overabundance of titles. First came Generation X. Then came Generation Y/The Millennials/The Net Generation/Generation Next/Echo Boomers, and finally, for those of us who graduated college in the current recession, The Lost Generation. If Generation X was the undefined, the generation that follows is the over-defined.

Another name given to us is the Peter Pan Generation. It is not a particularly flattering sobriquet, meant to reflect the perception that we are having trouble “growing up” in a traditional sense. Some say that this definition is based purely on the economic realities of our time, i.e. the recession has made it hard for this generation to enter the working world with the relative ease of previous generations and has sent us back to our parents’ houses, delaying our transition into adulthood. Some take a more sociological approach, explaining the increasing age at which the rites of adulthood are performed as a reaction to the mistakes of the previous generation, e.g. we marry later because so many of us are children of divorce.

There is some merit in both these explanations of how this generation has picked up the Peter Pan label, but they don’t mitigate the condescension remaining in the word choice. Embedded is the perception that my generation does not want to grow up, and therefore is childish, churlish, and shirking our responsibility–Peter Pan did not remain attachedto his childhood because he had trouble picking up work or because his parents lived in separate houses. Rather, he chose to remain a child, and symbolizes both the idealization of our youth and our fear of adulthood.

I reject any notion that my generation is afraid. However, I think it is fair to suggest that a generally mistrustful view of adulthood has become more common, and for defensible reasons. One can make a case-by-case argument that every institution we have been taught to hold in esteem has, in the last decade, given us ample reason to question their integrity.

The Church (already struggling to connect with progressive youth) is still dealing with the fallout of widespread pedophilia scandals; The Military is stuck in two unpopular wars (to be clear, the general opinion is that this reflects on the leadership and on the institution itself, not on the soldiers) in which a decisive victory seems to be impossible; The Government is viewed with such cynicism that being able to “run as an outsider” is a more important quality than “being literate,” –corruption is expected, fidelity is antiquated and politics play out like a gladiatorial event where campaign promises are “moves” and “countermoves” to which no elected official is held accountable; and finally, The Market has been handled so irresponsibly that we now have Amanda M. Fairbanks writing about us as The Lost Generation.

Certainly, these institutions have dealt with crisis before, challenges to their integrity are not new. However, one great injustice has influenced my generation’s perception of adulthood and has made it more difficult to have faith in the attendant milestones. We grew up during the hunt for Osama Bin Laden.

Now please excuse me while I speak in generalities and on behalf of many.

Osama Bin Laden has actively defined my generation, and the decade in which we have grown up. The attacks on 9/11, of which he was chief architect, welcomed us to the adult world. Most of us watched the television in our classrooms or from our entry-level jobs, young minds consuming the imagery of previously unfathomable devastation, hatred, chaos and loss.

We did what all young people do in a crisis and looked for leadership. We looked to the adults in our lives and asked them to make things okay, to assure us that the world still made sense. We asked for justice. We came together and shouted “U-S-A!” confident that the greatest country in the world would take care of us. Then, things started going wrong, and kept going wrong.

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As a fellow member of our generation (although only 22) I completely agree with what you have said. I read the Amanda Fairbanks’ article first and then yours and I think your analysis is dead on. Most poignantly you point out why we are optimistic “because we’ve been planning on being the ones to clean all this up for years.” I don’t think we can emphasize this point enough. We grew up being told that we were special while witnessing that everything else was “complicated” and “fallible”. It is only natural for us to take the mantle of responsibility upon ourselves form an early age.

I was in the crowd in front of the White House and tried my best to articulate my thoughts the following day. I wrote them down for others to see and my work published them to give a perspective as I worked right outside the White House. I wrote “Not until last night when I rushed down to the White House, swung from the gates on Pennsylvania Avenue, and chanted with my fellow human beings did I realize what an oppressive layer of fear [Osama Bin Laden] had created. Like coming up out of the fog, I can truly see how expansive it was. My fear has been lessened and I feel a sense of relief. … We rejoiced in the streets because collectively we all felt this relief. … Until this point in my life I could never truly understand the joy of V-day but last night I think I tasted a glimpse.”

I also hope that this is the last you have to write on this subject.

PS. Here is the full link to my post: http://blog.davidbbaker.com/2011/05/how-great-the-sadness-how-sweet-the-joy/

I believe that any statement made towards our generation tends to come out generalizing. I think the inability to stereotype us is our stereotype. We are layered. The minute you discover something about US, you are surprised with something you didn’t expect and we are not willing to sit back and allow you dissect, we are moving, because we have got a world to change. I will say this. What you say is what you see. If all you say is this generation is Lost, MySpace, etc. then that is what you see, but if you see our generation as Creative, Passionate and Alive, than that is what you will see.

Each new generation must find its footing just as surely as a baby must learn to stand on its own two feet and walk. It is a natural cycle that takes whatever time is necessary. The institutions that exist do so because they still serve a useful purpose for enough people to justify their existence. We can all learn from one another both old and young and everyone in between. Sometimes we must give it some time.

As eniolaanna said, it’s probably this generation’s huge variance that makes it so difficult to classify. In the last 20 years, so many marvellous inventions have become so commonplace in so much of the world that people with unusual interests can, rather than ignoring or hiding them, find communities of people with remarkably similar interests. Technology connects us so much now, and our culture is no longer defined by what the TV or the radio say it is.